Here you go.

Actually - Very well done. This works out great. I've said my peace in the Merge thread, too so I'll leave that one alone, as well.

Overall, a successful afternoon for BoBo.

i lold

I'm not sure if you care about my opinion, but from my experience, live cash games (especially on weekends) is incredibly soft compared to online poker. If you are able to consistently do well in .25/.50 online and below, you will have NO problems with 1/2 live and I'm being generous. I personally compare 1/2 live to .5/.10 online poker.

If a player can beat 1/2 online, I think the player can easily handle 5/10 live. Only reason why people prefer online is more hands/hour.

So my suggestion is if you have the fundamentals down, skip online and take a stab at the live games. You'll be surprised how bad live players play.


well that escalated quickly!

I keep reading these same sentiments on here (2p2 in general) and out and about, when I talk to other players, they all echo the same thing. I'm playing winning poker up to 6nl here and I see a lot of the same players at 10nl. The last week or so I'm really beginning to wonder some nights if I'm leaving a ton of money on the table by grinding online instead of just taking some cash over to the casino. I mean, one pot over there is bigger than a decent MTT tournament win at these stakes and I'm legitimately spending a ton of time on this at this point.

Actually, yes. Assuming you're talking about in the U.S. Most players you play with are going to be essentially anonymous -- either you've never played with them before, or there's a 95% chance that even if you have, you don't remember how they played.

I'd make the opposite argument. That reliance on a HUD makes you bad at live poker.

This is how live players play 1/2 live

$250 - A2s UTG - raises $10 (5bb raise)
$400 - AA BTN - raises $50
$200 - AK SB - calls $50

UTG calls. Pot $150
Flop Ks 6d 2d

SB - donk bet jams $150 (fearing people chasing flush), UTG Calls (thinks SB bluffing), BTN shoves, UTG somehow finds a fold with just $50 left.

Kid you not, this happened many times live, with various different holdings, but essentially same preflop/flop dynamic.

Don't bluff, they are not smart enough to find folds. And call people lighter. Be more of a calling station. Don't out level yourself and fold your top pair bad kicker to a river bet. Live players overplay their bluffs and miss value on their monsters because they are constantly wanting to check raise people with their nuts. So I rarely bet my draws and just fold if i miss (there is close to zero fold equity at some tables). But when I hit, people pay you off with 2nd pair and randomness.

I have to run out but I'll return to this later and PM you about it so that we don't derail this discussion that was created to not derail the other discussion

The bullet point that jumps out to me is checking down draws until you hit. One of the turning points in my game online was playing draws aggressively. You legitimately advise against this (of course, nothing is an always or never thing in poker) being a regular play for me when I first sit live? Open up my calling ranges, check draws, wait until I hit, bet like 60% pot and wait for their overbet to shove on? Is this what we're basically looking to do when dealing with the typical 1/2 fish?

You might want to check out this forum:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...low-stakes-nl/

This pole seems very one sided.

One-sided poles are the best type of poles.

Pretty dramatic shift from how this poll would've gone shortly after they changed to anonymous tables.

Humans don't like change

Pretty dramatic shift from how this poll would've gone if we weren't all voting this way just to spite him at this point.

LOL. I doubt there's much of that going on, or at least I hope not.

People aren't voting because pole is misspelled in the title.

Hmm. You may have a point there.

I wonder what 2+2 would be like if the forums were anonymous.

trolls trolls trolls

One thing to consider is that many people that were new to Bovada after the change now equate the softer games they saw compared to their old sites to the anonymous table model. They favor anonymous tables for this reason. The reality is that the games were better at Bodog vs many other sites way before the change to anonymous. In fact, the games were better before the anonymous tables believe it or not, although that just merely reflects a steady influx of better players joining over time due to numerous other factors.

It is possible that the games would have increased in skill level at a faster rate without the anonymous table model. Its just hard to quantify that vs other factors that were already in place and unequivocally kept the games softer than other sites like no new RB and especially the four table cap which essentially eliminates nitty mass tabling RB grinders from the site completely.

its not that hard to quantify, just look at pokerstars. They never switched and the games slowly got tougher and tougher and continue to by the day. Even before the US pulled out the games were still getting tougher

Yeah, you are right. However, as I stated in my post, I believe that other factors like the sports book and no mass tabling rules kept the games at Bovada better than Stars long before the anonymous table were even implemented. That being the case, its hard for me to say how much anonymous effects the skill level vs the other factors that are in play.

If I had to guess Id say that I believe that anonymous tables do keep the games softer but not as much as people are assuming.

Four table max > no player names all day for game quality if I had to pick one fwiw.

Holy ****, people actually prefer anonymous tables? I was floored when I read the results. I thought it would be like 90% for SNs, 10% for anonymous.

It appears the weaker players and even high level recreational player has discovered that having reads on players is important. It makes it easier for skilled players to exploit you. Bad players may have the same reads, but they wont use that information optimally. When you only have 15 hands on someone, its much more difficult to mix it up and play other than ABC poker. When I play live I see the same faces of people over and over again. Throughout the months & years it becomes even more apparent how to play more efficiently against them. That isnt a HUD, its utilizing key information that we have learned in real life.

If every site (or just Stars for example) asked if tables should be anonymous, I would be a hard "HELL NO" vote.

But having one decent sized but not major 3-4 site have the anonymous option, I think it's good. It is a unique attraction for some players, and while it's a turn off for others, there are many other places (every other site currently) where the people that don't like it can go.

I was skeptical at first, but I actually like that Bovada has this option that nobody else does. I hope other sites do not copy it, but I think it's a far more fair way to regulate the ecosystem of predatory players (players that only play bad players and refuse to play any other good players) than by banning or restricting the amount of tables these players play, putting a vig on cashouts or restricting the games that good players can play to keep them out of the "fish tables."

Kudos to Bovada (and this is coming from a guy that used to refer players to their site, but they ended most affiliate deals too).

Totally agree. Anonymous tables do make the games softer but ppl fail to realize perhaps the biggest factor that make online games so much harder than live poker. In live poker, you dont have to play as many hands against the very best players. Its exponentially different, because online you may have to play with a 8bb multi tabling crusher at almost every table, whereas in live you rarely have to play with them. If u take into account that the weaker players are the ones 1 tabling, and the best are 14 tabling, you can see how the games get exponentially more difficult. Think of it like if thousands of Phil Galfonds were magically cloned, and lived in every single city with a poker room in the world. Thats what it would be like in live poker terms